The pre-match plan for this away day was to spend our drinking time away from the shithole that is Boreham Wood and instead the fine city of St Albans, of where there is a very densely populated pub per square mile (44 to be precise, if the maps are correct). And this is exactly what we did courtesy of the 9.44AM hi-speed train via St Pancras which rather joyfully saw us arrive there about 90 minutes after our departure.
I was strangely the last person to arrive at Dover Priory station which is rather unusual, I'm normally one of the keen ones who's there first. I had been out the previous evening for Fish's birthday kareoke do down the Old Endeavour but I had no signs of a hangover as I hadn't over-done it on the beer. I would be greeted by a rather suprisingly good train army turnout with the likes of Phil Smith, Dave Waterfield, Jared, Martyn 'No-morals' Mcgarrigle, Fish, Mark Molesy or whatever his name is, Malcolm, Neil Patterson, some bloke and his son that I didn't catch the names of and of course Ryan Reid, who would provide most of the entertainment of the day depending on your amount tolerance. Plus we had the likes of Uncle John, Ginger Jonathan Pring, Josh Watkins and of course RUSSSSSSSSELLLL who joined us from their respective homes.
The train journey up was fairly low key from what I remember. Pretty much the usual discussions regarding sex, football and food were rife, plus a few more intellectual conversations were available in the form of Dave Waterfield, one of the more civilized presences amongst us. I was drinking at a very slow drinking space despite feeling fine.
The next train journey from ST Pancras to ST Albans was a bit more entertainment. Ryan Reid, who had livened up after a few bottles of budweiser, went racing down the other carriadge to try and catch a pidgeon that had alledgedly made its away onto the train. Sadly, it was just a lie from one of the others who had just wanted to get rid of him for a few minutes.
For those of you who don't know who Ryan is, if I was to sum him up in the nicest way possible I would suscribe him as 'Special' and 'Not all there' who looks and acts way younger than his 22 years of age. He's irritating at times and annoying as fuck once he's had a few beers, but overall he is a nice person and his heart is in the right place. You have to have high tolerance levels to spend a lot of time in his company and i'm one of the few who is able to, as-well as Phil; his Iceland's work colleague and all-round father figure to him on away trips.
Upon arrival in Stalebuns we were greeted by the brilliant presence of Uncle John, before making our way into the town centre to find our first pub. This would be hard and tirering work; having to walk all the way up the steep hill and try to find somewhere that was actually open before Midday! We eventually settled down in a place called the Boot Inn, a small pub but ideal for those who enjoy pub food and/or real ale. Myself? I tucked into a pint of Estrella, a premium Spanish beer for £3.90. Harsh on the wallet indeed, but a very nice pint nonetheless and if you're prepared to fork out extra for quality, do it. The steep prices brought out a classic quote from Ryan,
"How much is a pint of fosters?"
"£3.40" - Barman
" I'll have a coke please"
Ryan would also provide Dave and Phil with a humerous moment for verbally abusing the toilet hand-dryer for stopping blowing air after 10 seconds of use, like they normally do.
Not much else to write home about here though. Fish ordered a brie and bacon baguette which looked rather devine, most the younger lads fucked off to get some food and we lost them until the next pub, Russell eventually arrived and I managed to only drink my 1 pint of Estrella during the entire duration while everyone else managed to neck 2 or 3 pints within the same period. Then there was a gathering of Motorhead fans outside the pub as we prepared to leave and Phil thought it was a great idea to tell them that I was also a massive fan of them, despite the fact I only know 2 of their songs; one of them the Ace of Spades and the other one through wrestling!
After a good 50 minutes or so in there we made our way down the hill into the next pub, which I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. During the walk to there a hormonal Ryan would start getting overly-excited over every single female around while also annoying Dave by shouting out 'White Army in the street.
The most notable thing I remember about this pub was the two barmaids serving who were very aesthetically pleasing, enough to give the perverts amongst us a trouser bulge. Then I began ranting about AFC Wimbledon and them trying to steal the history off another club, Wimbledon FC, of whom MK Dons are the real continuity of, before letting off an absolutely monsterous fart, both in terms of smell and noise which for some reason the rest of the pub did not seem to appreciate. Farting was a common theme throughout the day, particularly from myself. The vile stenches I kept producing meant I didn't make for pleasant company.
Anyway, after necking an overpriced pint of carlsberg in there we made the short walk down to pub number 3, where Ryan Reid would amuse himself en route by playing Knock Down Ginger before prefusely laughing to himself. Being of an immature nature i found it funny, although I don't think anyone else was too impressed.
The next boozer is more reknowned for having a 3-legged, heart-breakingly-adorable hound than its beer. Rather amusingly Ryan began laying flat out on the floor with it and began stroking it, before asking where it was hiding its other leg which prompted tears of laughter from Waterfield. Then when I was in the toilet at the same time as him he began punching the taps and shouting "Come on I can piss faster than this" - refering to the flow of tap despite it coming out at a normal pace.
After a £3.50 pint of Becks and Ryan succesfully managing to piss off most of the public inside by being too noisy, we walked round to our fourth and final pub around the corner which I refered to as the Gadaffi. The majority of us only necked a very swift half in there as we wanted to catch the 14:12 instead of the 14:23 as the panickers amongst us wanted some lee-way in case of any potential delays.
We under-estimated the length of the walk to the station which meant jogging the final few minutes, not good for a severely obese chap like myself but we just managed to make it by the skin of our teeth which included John Pring standing inbetween the closing doors as we frantically shouted to ask if the train was heading to Elstree&BorehamWood station. It was, and I just managed to squeee through the tight gap, much to the relief of my sweat-clad body.
After a short 8 minute journey and a chance to catch our breath back we arrived in the picturesque town of Boreham Wood. Thanks to Ryan's eagerness in tracking down a bus we quickly hopped onto a bus that stopped near outside the ground for a cheeky £1 a person. My immence farting skills would come into play again leave the rest of passengers gasping for air.
Once we got off the bus John Pring discovered something on the floor that must be one of the rarest things in Britain - a Boreham Wood season ticket. Being a childs one it wasn't much use to him so after a bit of debate about whether we should hand it in or not we decided to give it to Malcolm, who succussfully managed to use it despite the foreign-sounding name on the card. Once I had arrived into the bar any concerning guilt over giving it to Malcolm vanished when I noticed an advertisement that allowed any Boreham Wood school children were entitled to free season tickets, which meant it became evident the season ticket had simply been discarded because nobody in Boreham Wood gives a shit about their sorry excuse of a football club.
After sinking a very suspect pint of San Miguel in their bar and succussfully managing to get into another away ground as a child, this time courtesy of uncle John playing the father role, I wasn't quite drunk enough to stomach the horror that would unfold in front of my eyes over the next 90 or so minutes.
Well actually, things started out rather electric for us. After an impeccably observed minute silence for rememberance day, the game kicked off and we got off to a flyer.
I had barely finished setting up my flags when Harry Baker smashed in a close-range half-volley, similar to his goal on Tuesday night after yet more superb from Donovan Simmonds down the flank.
"Here we go - we're in for some fun here" as we immedietly attacked from the re-start. But only a few minutes later we would come crashing back to earth after giving away a stupidly ridiculous goal. Tom Wynter, who has been superb recently, slipped on the ball at the back which gave their striker a clear run at goal and he gratefully stuck away his early christmas present to make the scoreline equal. With Schulz ruled out through illness he was made a make-shift centre half where he clearly wasn't comfortable and had a torrid game, while Nathan Ashton failed to fare much better in Wynter's favoured left-back berth.
And before we could even began to grieve at us needlessly chucking away an early lead we saw ourselves go behind when even more non-existant defending gifted them another goal. A cross from the right hand side saw one of their dudes totally unmarked in the area and he tucket it away with ease.
Cue a very long verbal rant by myself about how much of a shit, pointless football club Boring Wood are. Honestly, they should just be closed down. We only took around 100 fans there and it seemed like we out-numbered them. Its such a shitty, boring place, a crap ground with barely over 100 locals turning out to watch them. I really do hope that they would just either fucking die or relegate themselves back to the Hertfordshire County 6th division back where they belong. The extent of their vocal support extends to 4 mongs sat in the top of their stand who every now and then will shout "Wood" at random moments. Part of this rant may come to sour grapes at our embarrassing loss but if anything it just reinforces a view I already had about their worthless existance. How dare they not only beat us but fucking humiliate us. The cunts have no right being on the same football pitch as us, let alone be in our fucking league. If we hadn't let those motherfuckers end our unbeaten home run when we won the ryman premier they would have gone down and we would not be suffering with their dirty presence right now. So its our fault and ultimately Andy Hessenthaler's fault for not motivating our players enough to win that game.
A few minutes after gifting them the lead we were handed a life-line when one of their defenders rightfully got sent off for holding back James Walker when he made his way through on goal. Luckily the card-happy referee dished him out a red card when many others would not have given it, but we were unable to make much use of the extra man advantage and the subsquent free-kick, which was drilled straight into the wall. Seriously, when was the last time we scored directly from a free-kick? Obviously we had a well-worked routine at Woking result in a goal but I can't remember the last time we even shot from one that tested a goalkeeper?
We spent the rest of the half trying and failing to break down a stubborn BW defence that was intent on time-wasting and running the clock down, while the referee tried evening things out by booking various Dover challenges when very little contact or intent was made. Anything shots we had were well matched by their impressive goalkeeper, whom I discovered today is a loanee from Queens Park Rangers.
Then on the edge of half-time some absolutely criminal defending that was so bad it was almost comedic meant they would go into the break further in front. Phil Starkey, whom had an absolutely shocker, tried passing to Cogan for a short corner without even bothering to look up. There player intercepted and played it down the left a forwards and I watched in horror from the side, where I was waiting to get ready for the bar, as we found ourselves outnumbered against eleven men. Their player passed the ball into the path of another striker who duely rounded Ruiz for another stupid absolutely joke of a goal to concede. I booted the wall in frustration and steamed inside the bar for a much-needed drink.
As I stood inside effing and blinding at our defensive ineptness my mood was slightly lightened by some chap called PICKLE handing me over a tenner for the flags I am purchasing. Still, after angrily necking a pint I managed to get out a few minutes before the second-half with very little expectation of a comeback. I had to set up my flags again as nobody else could be arsed to help out once more and Simon Harris informed me that I would be doing a presentation for David Leworthy for our game against Woking on Saturday for winning the top 100 players thread.
Any chances of a comeback were effectively killed off 10 minutes in to the second half when we reserved our worst bit of school-boy defending for the last. Augustin Battipedi though it would be funny to attempt to play the ball accross in a crowded box where their on-loan Stevenage striker gratefully stuck the ball away for his hat-trick. It was such an indescribely error that I am still struggling to comphrehend it even now. Forster subbed him just a few minutes later and rightfully so, it was that horrific.
So somehow we managed to find ourselves 4-1 down to a pub-side that had spent the majority of the game with ten men. There were slight hints at a comeback when the superb Jason Walker struck from the spot after Southam took a suspect tumble in the box but despite our man advantage we struggled to create many real clear-cut chances to win the game and deservedly lost, even in spite of some dreadful play-acting and woeful refereeing.
There was a really comical moment when they cleared the ball away and their greasy gobby number 3 tapped one of his fellow defenders in the chest to signal for him to go down 'injured', an example of some real horrendous time-wasting tactics that the referee was completely obliviously too. We were also denied another clear penalty shout and their keeper made some impressive saves from some half-chances but nobody can have any real complaints at leaving Hertfordshire with nothing.
For all our possession, if you don't create many chances and defend like absolute fucking arseholes then you're going to lose more games than you're going to win. Our defending was the worst I have ever seen from us, even in our dark relegation days. It was terrible school-boy stuff and every single goal was easily preventable. I'm still angered and upset over the manner of our defeat, we were'nt good enough and the players let us down to give the game away as easily as they did.
The only two players to come away from the game with any credit in my opinion were once again Donovan Simmonds and Jason Walker, particularly the latter who even in defeat was magnificient and has completely won me over. His first touch and control are absolutely superb and he lays off all the right balls. I'd love to see what these two are capable of in a side with a midfield that creates loads of chances.
Glen Southam played some really nice long balls but he's all over the place whenever we're not in possession. Battiepedi had an off-game and we really need him to gain some consistency if he's to be our creative play-maker.
Overall though it was an awful defeat, particularly with the momentum we had in the league going into the game. We can't afford to be dropping stupid points if we still harbour ambitions of getting promoted. Its not the end of the world, and hopefully that was a one-off, but it was still a huge cause of concern particularly with Woking and Dartford our next two league games coming up.
The worst thing about it all is we have to return to Boreham Wood in a fortnight for the trophy game. I vowed after the game that I was going to avoid going to the game but we all know that will never happen. The prospect of dishing out some revenge is a handsome one but overall I would like to avoid that shithole all together, forever.
As soon as the final whistle blew we all immedietly fucked off out of the ground and rushed up the high street, where we all shacked up in the Wetherspoons (incidently one of the worst ones in the UK). Ryan cheered me up a bit by dipping the chips he purchased into his pint of beers and licking sachets of tomato ketchup off his plate but again, not everybody was impressed.
After a much welcome pint of beer I felt it was time for a KFC and rocked up in their for a suprisingly dissapointing meal. Then again the KFC was in Boreham Wood, so it would hardly be suprising that it was under-par. After that me, Russell and Fish all caught the train to St Pancras as we would be heading up to Russells flat in Nottingham, the city where he goes to university at. (Not the proper one, the polytechnic one).
I won't explore my time ooooop north in too much depth like I did with my Truro review, mainly because I've been writing his blog piece for fucking hours and want it finished and mainly because its dragging on and I don't want to bore you.
But I had an excellent few days up there and managed to have an evening out that was successful, with no reports of bad leg chaffing or huge cock-fests to sour my time away. There were a few scares though. Once I had arrived in Nottingham I had completely sobered up and it took me quite a few hours and drinks to get me back into the swing of things. We started out in a few lively bars before trying to head onto a club. We got rejected by the first two because we were wearing BRIGHT WHITE trainers and I thought "fucking hell, here we go again" but then we ended up in some club called Rock City, which was absolutely superb and made for a top night. The club lived up to its name and was full of rock/emo types, some of whom were females and looked nawty as fuck. The bottom room was full of fairly cheesey pop songs but the top room was absolutely buzzing, proper rock and indie songs blaring out all night. The interior inside was not modern and it made for a better atmosphere, particularly as it attracted less of the chavvy, pikey types there that most clubs seem to attract. Overall I loved it in there - even though it made me realise how shit Club Karma in Dover is!
I know club toilets are not reknowned for their immence hygiene but the state of the cubical in there was hilariously vile. Some dude had somehow managed to shit all over the back of the seat, which didn't make for a nice combination with the puke and blood inside the toilet.
And one particularly great thing about Nottingham was the women. Now being Callum Snell pulling girls is never something that seems to be on the cards, but the amount of show was absolutely fantastic. For once, It was a place where the women seemed to out-number the males. Yet still, I could only count on one hand the amount of girls that weren't smashable. You had blondes, brunettes, skinny, fat, big-boobed, emo, South Asian, North Asian, Indian, Black, White, you fucking name it, so many beautiful women everywhere. And that certainly helped me form a favourable impression of Nottingham.
The Sunday was certainly a bit more low-key but we managed to do wander round the city and shops, eat lunch, go out for dinner and have several pints at a pub quiz but with Russell and his flat-mates needing to be up early on Monday for lectures and what-not, we couldn't take the piss. And given the large amount of money I spent over the course of the weekend, it was a good job we didn't completely smash it for another night.
So on midday Monday we had to bid a miserable farewell to Nottingham, a city which based on my early impressions I thought was fantastic, and would definetly reccomend it for a night out. I've got the bug for wanting to visit other cities now!
The visit to Nottingham certainly helped prevent a disastrous football day from ruining a weekend so kudos to Russell and his flat mates for putting us up for a few days, particularly with my snoring habits that i've been unaware of.
So next up for us is of course the big one with Woking. We'll have to defend a lot better against them than we did earlier on this season, and certainly a helluva lot better than against Boreham Wood. Hopefully that was just a blip, a bad day at the office. On our day we can give the leaders a good game and take it to them, so fingers crossed we'll pull off an upset. I'm very nervous at the prospect of presenting Leworthy with an award before the game on the pitch, but its certainly an honour nonetheless and something to look forward to. But hopefully the real joy will come from beating Woking to get back on track so heres hoping, COYW.
| Saturday 12 Nov 2011 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boreham Wood | 4 | - | 2 | Dover | |
 Bryant (12) Thalassitis (46) Thalassitis (58) Thalassitis (05) |
Baker (03)  Walker (67) |
 261 |
|||
| Dartford | 1 | - | 1 | Weston-S-Mare | |
| Green (44) |
Pepperell (30) |
1,149 |
|||
| Farnborough | 1 | - | 3 | Eastleigh | |
| Connolly (57) |
White (18) Forbes (75) Brown (80) |
471 |
|||
| Havant and W | 0 | - | 0 | Eastbourne Borough | |
| 783 |
|||||
| Tonbridge Angels | 3 | - | 2 | Staines Town | |
| Olorunda (80) Kinch (07) Collin (08) |
Taylor (58) Taylor (05) |
517 |
|||
| Dorchester | 1 | - | 0 | Hampton & Richmond | |
| Critchell (91) |
447 | ||||
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Woking | 16 | 12 | 3 | 1 | 39 | 13 | 26 | 39 |
| 2 |  |
Sutton United | 15 | 10 | 3 | 2 | 33 | 15 | 18 | 33 |
| 3 | |
Dartford | 16 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 33 | 18 | 15 | 33 |
| 4 | |
Welling United | 16 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 36 | 22 | 14 | 33 |
| 5 | |
Chelmsford | 16 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 27 | 15 | 12 | 28 |
| 6 | |
Dover | 17 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 26 | 15 | 11 | 28 |
| 7 | |
Boreham Wood | 17 | 8 | 3 | 6 | 22 | 23 | -1 | 27 |
| 8 | |
Basingstoke Town | 15 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 29 | 20 | 9 | 26 |
| 9 | |
Dorchester | 19 | 8 | 1 | 10 | 25 | 30 | -5 | 25 |
| 10 | |
Tonbridge Angels | 17 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 33 | 35 | -2 | 24 |
| 11 |  |
Eastleigh | 17 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 22 | 28 | -6 | 23 |
| 12 | |
Truro City | 16 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 28 | 31 | -3 | 22 |
| 13 | |
Eastbourne Borough | 16 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 29 | 27 | 2 | 21 |
| 14 | |
Weston-S-Mare | 16 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 27 | 28 | -1 | 21 |
| 15 | |
Havant and Waterlooville | 17 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 30 | 30 | 0 | 19 |
| 16 | |
Salisbury City | 15 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 20 | 22 | -2 | 19 |
| 17 | |
Bromley | 15 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 24 | 28 | -4 | 18 |
| 18 | |
Maidenhead United | 17 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 22 | 37 | -15 | 18 |
| 19 | |
Farnborough | 17 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 42 | -22 | 13 |
| 20 | |
Staines Town | 16 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 17 | 26 | -9 | 10 |
| 21 | |
Hampton & Richmond | 16 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 19 | 30 | -11 | 10 |
| 22 | |
Thurrock | 16 | 2 | 3 | 11 | 14 | 40 | -26 | 9 |
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